Stonehill grows serious

When I insist that someone at my table has to order the chicken, everyone gives me the stink eye. “The chicken? Really?” The Jidori bird is deep-fried whole and served for two, with macaroni and cheese. They glance across the table at each other, waiting, hoping the other will claim the presumed booby prize.

It's not a ringing endorsement of the chicken. But later in the evening when our entrees arrive, I'm vindicated. She's suddenly sitting taller, grinning like a Cheshire cat. A waiter pushes a trolly toward us carrying the whole bird intact, resting regally on its back, legs in the air. Heads turn at every table as the trophy travels through the room, trailing an intoxicating plume of steam. When the other entrees are placed on the table, no one's looking at the scallops or the pork chop. All eyes are on our waiter as he begins expertly carving the still dangerously hot bird.

Restaurants where the chef who does most of the cooking isn't the one whose name is on the door can be tricky. But since opening in 2006, Michael Mina's Stonehill Tavern in Dana Point has seen a series of rising stars take their turns in the kitchen, each making a name for himself while channeling Mina's earnest yet whimsical flair for American cuisine.

Being Mina's ghost writer and culinary body double can't be easy. The newest chef tasked with that challenge is Raj Dixit, who was raised in Aliso Viejo before leaving for the East Coast, where he came of age in the kitchens of Craig Shelton and David Bouley, two of the best. With the latest menus in place, aside from a couple of Mina classics, it's hard to tell exactly where the protege's influence begins and the master's ends. And while the cooking at Stonehill today is mostly solid, it feels distinctly less whimsical than it has in the past.

Most people are aware that Stonehill Tavern is not a tavern. It is nothing of the sort. As far as I know, this is the only restaurant in O.C. designed by Tony Chi, whom I regard as one of the greatest restaurant designers of all time. Chi's work here feels as fresh today as it did nearly seven years ago. The bar is a study in dark woods and chocolate-toned marble, with mercifully forgiving lighting and perfectly calibrated music. The dining room is more muted, a spectacular ode to beige if there ever was one. There is almost always a lively little scene here – just enough to make me feel like I've stumbled upon the in-crowd, but never so much bustle that anyone has to raise their voice. It's the perfect place to meet friends for a meticulously crafted Moscow Mule or mint julep.

This is one of the fanciest, most elegant and, let's be honest, most expensive restaurants in Orange County. That chicken, the best thing on the menu since Day 1, costs $29 per person. It's the cheapest entree available, and although it is unquestionably a pricey proposition for a chicken dinner, it never disappoints.

But before the chicken – before everything else – comes another of my favorite things. Instead of butter, the bread is served with a scoop of ricotta that's been whipped into a cloud and drizzled with an ethereal mixture of olive oil and honey, then sprinkled with rosemary-infused sea salt. I'd be perfectly content to make a meal of just this, happily luxuriating over bites of grilled toast lavishly slathered with this decadent elixir, licking it from my fingers when nobody is looking. But why stop there?

A tasting of seasonal shellfish sounds fit for a king: abalone crudo, uni flan, geoduck clam ceviche, Dungeness crab, blue lip mussels, a single oyster. And while it sounds like a gluttonous trough of food, it's really only a few small bites. Unfortunately, the kitchen can't make good on the promised uni flan, so I'm told they'll substitute an extra Santa Barbara spot prawn, which sounds fine in theory but turns out to be a poor tradeoff. The prawns fail to deliver that wonderfully silken trademark texture that speaks to their rich Santa Barbara pedigree. They taste instead like a poor man's shrimp cocktail, unapologetically bland and rubbery. Best to skip the sampler and order the tuna tartare, a Mina classic that remains a textbook example of how to prepare raw ahi, artfully blended at the table with habanero-infused sesame oil, chopped pear, pine nuts and ancho chili powder.

The shellfish sampler aside, it's generally the smaller bites at Stonehill that impress most. An assortment of canapes delivers an immensely gratifying shotgun blast of nuance and texture ranging from an intensely salty, almost gelatinously fatty curl of Spanish ham to a tiny kebab of sour-lime-soaked pear and seared tuna. And there is a timeless little salad of poached Maine lobster and California citrus that reminds me of the importance of simplicity.

For a middle course, I order the trofie pasta with roasted Castroville artichokes, black truffle and burrata cheese, and I'm delighted by its unexpected lightness. The trofie are crafted in miniature. The cheese is so light, it almost floats from the bowl. Whipped polenta with porcini ragout, on the other hand, is just a puddle of brown mush, nothing more, nothing less.

And so we have yet another restaurant that suffers from premature climax. The chicken is the only entree on the menu (from the à la carte or the chef's tasting menu, over three visits) that trumps whatever comes before it. The miso-glazed cod is unquestionably good, but not especially better than the same dish served at a dozen other restaurants. The lobster pot pie is delicious, but by the time it's plated tableside, it has lost much of its heat. The perfectly cooked Kurobuta pork chop and belly come with poppy seed spaetzle and fontina cheese that would be far more rewarding if they weren't glued together in a clump, more or less stuck to the plate. And the old-school filet mignon with wilted spinach and Madeira gravy? Cooked respectably, but no more inspired than it sounds. At this point, I'm wanting another canapé.

Until the desserts arrive. And that's when I'm assured once again of Michael Mina's staying power. The chocolate toffee bar is a blissfully happy marriage of peanut butter and chocolate. A sticky toffee cake tastes like the very essence of Christmas, lovingly adorned with ribbons of finely shaven pear. A soufflé of kabocha squash melts in the mouth like hot cotton candy and is made all the more exotic by the addition of ras el hanout-infused ice cream. But as wonderful as all of these desserts are, none is more spectacular or more inspired than Mina's classic root beer float. I don't know where he gets his root beer, or what he puts in that ice cream, but nobody makes a better float. Nobody.

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